DR. AMBEDKAR AND THE HINDU CODE BILL 439
alternatives have come into existence and by experience we have found that they give better results. Therefore, we are not destroying anything without putting something in its place; we are not leaving the whole society in a sort of vacuum as it were. What has outlived its usefulness is being liquidated so that new India will go ahead with greater speed and may attain greater progress.
Now, the real trouble as I said is about some share being given to the daughter: whether it should be half or whether it should be something less are details which can be discussed later on. But one point is certain and that is that the daughter must get some share. In free India if you are only going to say that—
यत्र नार्यस्तु पूज्यन्ते रमन्ते तत्र देवता
and then say that she should either go to a court of law or ask for maintenance, I say it is not fair.
My own feeling is that some difficulties may arise at the beginning; when new institutions come, when new thoughts generate; society does take some time to adjust itself. The question is not whether these difficulties are great or small: the relevant question is whether the new arrangement proposed is good or bad. If you are convinced that it is good, naturally there will be some difficulty in adjustment. We must not mind the difficulty at all.
It has been suggested that as soon as the marriage is over the bridegroom will start trouble, by suing or otherwise, for the share which his wife has got from her parents. It would be welcome to lawyers. Well, when we are trying to nationalise as much as possible, what little will be left will not be of great consequence, that people would go to the court for a small share of it. In times to come there will be little left both for the boy and the girl. Even if it leads to litigation, does it mean that we should not do justice? Because a good tiling may be abused by a few, does it mean that it should be denied to all? It is for the House to decide. It is high time that the general talk of equality of sex must be followed by equality of ownership of property. If we do not do that we will have to face the charge of hypocrisy.
My honourable friend Pandit Lakshmi Kanta Maitra has prophesied all sorts of trouble for the great Hindu society. Such prophets have always been there in the past and they have always proved false. I have not the slightest doubt that Hindu society has got such a flexible nature that it has absorbed various cultures and if it has lived through